“Room With a Really Weird View” in Sacramento Bee (28 July 1996)

Room With a Really Weird View

Bunny furniture and Elvis TV trays decorate 'Apartment for Rent'

Featured in Sacramento Bee (28 July 1996)

A school of neon fish flash on and off, lighting up a corner of the room. Bizarre furniture, frmo a gouged and spiky table and chair to a be-jeweled
bunny-headed dresser, occupies the floor space. Fanciful fiberglass sculptures, resembling strange undersea and outer space creatures, glow with an inner
light under paintings of pop culture characters.

Welcome to "Apartment for Rent," an installation at Matrix Gallery that is part of the citywide "Introductions" series designed
to showcase artists new to Sacramento. Four artists make their debut in the Matrix show: Karl X. Hauser, Laura Jacobs and Isabel Samaras, all from the Bay
Area, and Lea Pianna of Santa Cruz.

Hauser's neon sculptures range from the fish, which dart across the wall in an endless array of fascinating patterns, to funky lamps that resemble
figures or architectural objects. Pianna's light sculptures are softly glowing, brightly colored organic forms made of fiberglass and painted
fabric.

Much of Jacobs' furniture, expressionistically carved and adorned with tusklike protrusions, is menacing yet elegant. Other pieces, like the bunny
dresser and a folksy rocker adorned with primitive paintings, seem ideal for a child's room.

Samaras' cheeky paintings on TV trays place pop figures in mythological settings. In a twist on "The Judgment of Paris," Batman judges
Catwomen Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar and Michelle Pfeiffer. In other scenes, Charlie's Angels are cast into hell and a green and bloated Elvis is lugged
up to heaven by a bevy of cupids.

They all add up to an appealingly goofy show in Matrix's new quarters on Del Paso Boulevard.